The Peloponnese is the mainland that behaves like an island, ringed by sea, with mountains in the middle and olive groves running down to the water on every side, and nobody has to catch a boat to get there.
In the south west, Messinia has Venetian harbour towns, a long gulf of beaches and more olive trees than most people will see in a lifetime.
Along the east coast, an hour or two from Athens, the same peninsula offers estates and villages with the Saronic islands in view.
Why the mainland changes the wedding
The first difference is room. Estates here sit in groves that go on for hectares, so a hundred and fifty guests do not have to be squeezed onto a terrace, and the long table can be as long as the family.
The second is time. Guests arrive by road or through Kalamata airport, hotels are close, and a wedding can stretch across three or four days without anyone worrying about a ferry timetable.
The third is the sense of place. Mountains behind, sea in front, a castle on most of the headlands, and a way of feeding people that starts with the oil from the trees around you.
Where to get married in the Peloponnese
Four parts of the peninsula host most of its weddings. Messinia, in the south west, has Koroni with its Venetian castle on the headland and white alleys down to the harbour, Navarino Bay with the resorts and the marinas at Pylos, and Kalamata under Mount Taygetos with beaches inside the city and olive presses in every direction. The Mani, south of Kalamata, begins at Kardamyli with its stone houses, towers and pebble shore. Laconia has Monemvasia, a medieval town walled onto a rock in the sea. The Argolida coast in the east, around Porto Heli and Ermioni, is the closest to Athens and shares its water with Spetses, with Nafplio and its mansions a short drive inland. Between all of them are the estates and farms among the olives where most of the weddings happen.
Getting to the Peloponnese
There are two ways in. Kalamata airport, in the south west, takes direct flights from two dozen European cities through the season and has flights from Athens all year round, and it puts the Messinian coast and the Mani within an hour. Athens airport serves the rest. From there the motorway reaches Nafplio and the Argolida coast in about two and a half hours and Kalamata in two and a half to three, with Koroni about half an hour further on. There is no crossing anywhere in the Peloponnese. Guests who land in Athens in the morning can be at the wedding the same afternoon, and guests who prefer a shorter drive fly straight into Kalamata.
The best time to get married in the Peloponnese
The dry season runs from May to September, and May, June, September and October are the months we would choose first, warm without the August heat, which reaches the low thirties in Kalamata. Spring is green, with wildflowers on the slopes of Taygetos that end up in bouquets, and October still gives warm days and a warm sea.
The Peloponnesian table
The Peloponnese has a sweet made for weddings. Diples are thin sheets of dough folded, fried in olive oil, drizzled with honey and scattered with walnuts and cinnamon, and they have been served at weddings across the peninsula for as long as anyone has kept the recipe.
They are the first sign that here the tradition is edible. The oil comes from the groves the guests drove through, and the Kalamata olives on the table grew within sight of it. Each region adds its own dish, the olive and cheese pie of the Mani, the handmade pasta of Arcadia, figs and artichokes from the foothills of Taygetos, and the wine comes from Nemea and Mantinia in the north, with the sweet Malvasia of Monemvasia for the end of the night.
